


Nothing

by TsarinaTorment



Series: Sensory Sunday [1]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Alan whump, Angst, Asphyxiation, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Concussions, Cyclone, Explosion, Gen, Hurt Alan, Hurt Scott, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Background Character Death, Scott Whump, SensorySunday, hypoxia, no air in space, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24479239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TsarinaTorment/pseuds/TsarinaTorment
Summary: Was space supposed to be this dark?  A mission to rescue the crew of a freighter goes horribly wrong.
Relationships: Gordon Tracy & Scott Tracy, Scott Tracy & Alan Tracy, Tracy Family - Relationship
Series: Sensory Sunday [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1778035
Comments: 16
Kudos: 62





	1. I - Scott

**Author's Note:**

> New tumblr challenge from gumnut - SensorySunday! We're starting with the sense of Sight :D

The silence was probably not a good thing. Nor was the ever-encompassing _black_ all around him-

Oh, his eyes were closed. That explained that. He sent a sharp command to his eyelids to open, but they refused to do any more than twitch. He ordered them again, clenching his jaw, and with a spike of pain lancing through his head in furious complaint, they obeyed.

It was still black. That was odd. He forced his protesting eyelids to close and re-open in a painfully slow blink. Still black.

Panic gnawed at him, settling in his bones and suffocating his lungs. Black, all black. _Blind_ the voice in his head wailed, hysterics already trying to set in as his chest heaved, trying to find air that just wasn't there.

That prompted another thought, a memory that slammed the panic back into its box at the back of his mind.

Of course there wasn't air. He wasn't blind. He was in _space_. A mission with a giant freighter in distress and crew in need of evac.

He was in space and it was silent. Well, that made sense. Sound didn't travel in space. He forced another blink and this time a dark blue fuzz invaded his periphery. His helmet.

His helmet was on. That was a good thing.

So why was it so silent?

"Thunderbird Three?" he croaked. "Alan?"

Nothing. His own voice bounced around the confines of his helmet, but there was no _click_ to indicate a connection from his comms. No static to inform him the unit had taken some damage. Nothing.

He was floating, weightless and helpless. No communications. No way to stop his movement, and nothing except that endless void of black.

Where were the stars? Where was Earth? The Moon? The Sun?

Oh, he'd closed his eyes again. With a groan, he forced them open again.

It wasn't black anymore. Chunks of rock surrounded him, some no bigger than his palm, some bigger than Tracy Island. _Asteroid belt_ that little voice whispered, and the panic burst back out of its little box, straining against his attempts to reign it in.

The freighter hadn't been anywhere near the asteroid belt.

 _Asteroid belt has a buckle_ , Uncle Lee's voice told him, but Uncle Lee wasn't here and he didn't know where one went about finding it. That was John's job. Or Alan's.

Not Scott's.

 _All right, let's take it from the top_. Logic was John's thing, but panic was breaking through every defence he was raising against it and John would be telling him to start from the top, just like all those times he'd helped him with his physics after little brothers were gone to bed. Their little secret. They had a few secrets, actually. Big brothers united against little.

His thoughts were drifting. _Back on task, Scooter_. Scooter. He didn't hear that much anymore. Scotty, when one or more of his devilish brothers wanted something, but Scooter had been used by Dad just as much as his brothers. They'd all stopped using it after the Zero-X. Whether that had been a conscious change or not, he didn't know.

Maybe he should ask.

 _You're drifting again._ He was, and vaguely he realised that that was a bad thing. _Take it from the top_.

Freighter in distress. Somewhere midway between the moon and Mars. Something-something fuel tank, risk of explosion, "we're on our way, John." Thunderbird Three left on standby, Alan complaining it was too dangerous to jetpack across. Grappling across.

_Boom._

No sound; no sound in space. But _light_ , bright, searing light that burnt his eyes. Light that blurred everything out, the black of space, the white of stars, the grey of the freighter. No blue and green marble.

No _red._

Alan? Thunderbird Three?

What had happened next? He didn't remember. There was _bright_ and then there was black, and nothing in between.

Now, there was light again. Dark grey rocks, with hint of brown and shining crystals of ice and all the things that made up an asteroid whirling around in front of him. A flash, light catching on metal. Torn metal, the bland grey of a freighter. Twisted, snarled all around itself like a work of art.

A memorial to the dead.

He still couldn't hear anything. His back slammed into something, _hard_.

That was probably bad. The voice in his head said something about _did the suit tear?_ That was important. Why was it important?

Oh yes. Air. Did he still have air?

Red caught his attention in front of him, an unclear fuzz. Scott blinked, his eyes staying closed for several moments before remembering that a blink required the eyes to open again.

The red was still a fuzz. It was right in front of his nose, reminding him of Gordon shoving something too close to his face and his vision going funny as he tried to focus on it even as it got too close. Alan did that too, sometimes, when he was excited.

Alan. Red. _Thunderbird Three_.

Was that Thunderbird Three? Why would Thunderbird Three be right in front of his nose? Thunderbird Three was too big to make him go cross-eyed.

He closed his eyes again, letting them rest for a moment before demanding that they open again, and stop being so fuzzy. It wasn't funny. He needed to see Alan coming. Needed to know Alan was alright.

Twisted grey flashed by him again and fear clutched at his heart. What if it was so close because it wasn't _all_ of Thunderbird Three?

_ALAN!_

He felt heavy. Funny. He was in space. He didn't _weigh_ anything. He shouldn't feel heavy.

The red in front of his face halved in size suddenly, abruptly. Then it expanded, blurring out his vision until all he saw was a red mist. He couldn't breathe, his lungs tried hard, tried so, so hard, but nothing entered.

The red mist distorted, dispersing and being strangled by the black. No, Scott didn't want the black. He wanted the red. He wanted Alan and Thunderbird Three and-

Nothing.


	2. II - Alan

Something exploded.

"Alan? Scott? Thunderbird Three, do you copy?"

It was dark. No, no it wasn't. He had his eyes closed.

Why were his eyes closed? Just because he _could_ pilot Thunderbird Three in his sleep didn't mean he should, or that Scott and John would let him get away with it.

He peeled his eyes open and immediately wished he hadn't.

Earth was close. Earth was _too close_ , considering he should have been the other side of the moon's orbit.

"Alan! Scott! Thunderbird Three! Respond!"

That was John. He groaned, leaning back in his pilot chair and taking a moment or five to work out what the hell was going on.

Had he teleported? That beautiful blue and green marble was definitely not that close before, and ooh, that was an awesome storm over the Pacific. Not far from home, actually. Was going to make returning to Tracy Island complicated – but nothing he couldn't handle, of course.

"Alan, _answer me!_ "

Uh oh, John didn't sound happy. He should probably do something about that.

"'Sup, Thunderbird Five?" he drawled, looking around for his brother's projection. It wasn't there, but sparks were emitting from the console and oh, that probably wasn't good.

"Alan, status. Are you injured? Is Scott?"

"Uh…" _Scott?_

He looked across at the co-pilot's chair, wondering why his big brother was being so quiet.

It was empty.

Well, no, that wasn't true. The back of it had a hole blown through it, the trajectory lining up neatly with the source of the sparking console. Some of the internal padding was spilling out into the seat.

How had that happened?

"Alan?"

Why was the co-pilot seat damaged? Why was the console damaged? Why was he heading back to Earth without Scott?

"John, what happened?" he asked when his memory didn't give him an answer. He didn't sound like the cool astronaut he tried to be. He sounded like a scared child.

"The freighter exploded and sent Thunderbird Three flying," John told him, his voice clipped. "Alan, _are you injured_? Is Scott?"

"Scott's not here," Alan responded slowly, his brain chewing over the new information-

A bright flash. _Scott get the hell out of there!_ Buckling plating. Explosion.

_Bang._

Oh no.

"John! Scott was outside when it blew!"

He remembered that now. He'd realised the freighter was going to blow the moment Scott left the safety of Thunderbird Three to grapple across. Not that he hadn't already _known_ it was going to blow – that was the whole reason they were there. But that it was going to blow then. Right then, with his big brother rapidly approaching it with nothing to tether him to Thunderbird Three and only one flimsy grapple holding him onto the doomed freighter.

He thought he'd screamed into the comms for Scott to _get the hell out of there_ , language be damned as he watched the grey heap of soon to be scrap heave once, twice, and stutter for one, eternally long moment before it went.

The moment might have been eternally long, but had been an eternity too short for Alan to bring Thunderbird Three around and shield Scott from the blast, or even grab him with a grappling arm and high tail it _out_ of there, rescue be damned. That wasn't very International Rescue of him, maybe, but Scott had always told him that they couldn't rescue anyone if they were dead themselves and that they should always make sure they were safe.

Virgil had called Scott a hypocrite for that more than once. Alan hadn't had the time to agree before the shockwave hit and Thunderbird Three rolled while it all went black.

The exterior cockpit hatch was still open.

He could see that, looking around frantically for any sign that Scott had found shelter. Why was it still open?

His head hurt. When had that happened?

John was talking, words merging together into a cacophony of _sound_ Alan couldn't translate right then.

_Alan Tracy is unavailable at the moment. Please leave a message after the tone._

His head hurt. Thunderbird Three's console was still spitting sparks.

It was getting hard to breathe. He was cold. Not enough air left in his helmet.

Cockpit hatch was open. Couldn't take off helmet.

Close cockpit hatch.

He could do that, right?

 _You can't save anyone if you're dead._ Close the hatch. Get air. Find Scott.

Maybe find out what was causing the lightshow where John's hologram should be, too.

That sounded like a good idea. He should do that.

A groan tore itself from his lips as he reached forwards, aiming for the switch to close the hatch. _Ow_ , his head. And since when did he have eight fingers?

He blinked, because that couldn't be right, but all that gave him was swimming vision and eight fingers blurring into one blue blob.

Oh, that wasn't good. That meant something. Something bad.

"John?" It was a whine, maybe a slur. He wasn't sure he'd even said it. Maybe he'd just groaned and assumed it sounded like his big brother's name because _he needed a big brother right now_.

Scott was… somewhere. Not here. Missing. Bad, that was bad. He had to find Scott.

Cockpit hatch. Something about cockpit hatch. Ooh, blue blob – wait, no, that was his hand. Wasn't it? He moved his hand and the blue blob moved as well. Okay, yes, blue blob meant hand. Cockpit hatch… _close_ cockpit hatch. Move blue-blob-hand to close-hatch-button.

He hit something, not sure what it was, but everything was _red_ and that noise was _loud_ , ow, why had John turned his alarm on? He wasn't asleep!

"Not asleep!" he protested out loud – at least, that was what he tried to say – flailing at the source of the wailing noise and flashing red lights. _Ow_. Bad. Red should be good but that was _bad_. "Turn it off."

 _Trrnnfffff_ echoed through his helmet. That was weird. And went straight through his head, _ow_.

 _Ow_ was becoming Alan's go-to word.

The alarm kept wailing, his hand – blue-blob – flailed in front of him, but couldn't find what it was looking for. Couldn't _remember_ what it was looking for.

Scott? Yes, Scott.

He wanted Scott.

 _Help me, Scotty,_ cried the small child in his head.

"Alan?"

Tall, blue. Kinda blurred but _Scott?_

 _Scotty?_ He'd said that out loud, right? Ah well. Scott was here now. That was good.

Blue blurred and black started to invade his vision. Oh, he was tired. But Scotty was here. He could sleep now.


	3. III - John

Hearing Alan call out their big brother's name _hurt_. Not because John was upset that Alan wanted Scott, but because it meant Alan didn't recognise him. And if Alan didn't recognise him, something was very wrong. Scott might be _their_ big brother, but he was the one that Alan had followed in the footsteps of. He was just as much Alan's hero as Scott was.

Thunderbird Three was a mess. He'd known that on approach, thanking their mother profusely that Thunderbird Three had been blown to within exosuit-range of Thunderbird Five, but there was something about seeing shears of grey streaking through the red of Alan's ship that made him go cold. A sparking console and the appearance of a bullet that had gone straight through the co-pilot's seat did nothing to ease the dread.

First things first, he had to get to Alan. He punched the button to close the hatch, sealing them inside the battered ship and away from the cruelty of the empty space, and ran the few feet to the pilot's chair.

Red dripped down Alan's face, blood from a headwound John couldn't see. His sensors were blaring out in distress – out of oxygen, a damaged helmet leaking air into the void of the unsealed cockpit – but John forced himself to wait, check the hull integrity. If Thunderbird Three had a breach, he couldn't take his helmet off.

No breach, and that was the best news John had had all day. All week, really. It took him no time at all to unfasten Alan's helmet, pulling it off of his youngest brother's head and exposing him to the oxygen inside Thunderbird Three's cockpit.

The shudder that went through Alan's body as it heaved in a lungful of air was a welcome sight. Blue eyes didn't open, Alan's head lolling in his unconscious state, but he was breathing. It was a good start.

Normally, first aid dictated that he should do something about the bleeding head – it didn't _look_ too serious, but something in the combination of lack of oxygen and head injury had his brother unconscious and that was concerning – but Alan wasn't the only brother in danger, and with him safely cocooned inside Thunderbird Three, he was in less danger than Scott. The choice was not _easy_ , but it was logical. John hated it, but he'd hate it more if he squandered any chance at all of saving _both_ his brothers.

Alan was carefully moved, relocated into the co-pilot's chair and strapped in with a spare helmet and plenty of oxygen, and John slipped into the pilot's chair, perched on the edge as the exosuit stopped him from sitting in properly. It had been some time since he'd last piloted the rocket, but for a time he _had_ been Thunderbird Three's primary pilot, and cramped in a piloting position for a shorter person with less _leg_ , he turned the battered white nose back towards the freighter's last known position and hit the ion engine.

EOS told him she'd found Scott. Co-ordinates were uploaded into Thunderbird Three's computer. Usually, John could identify emotion in the way the AI spoke.

This time, he couldn't, and that scared him.

He found Scott crumpled on the surface of an asteroid, unmoving, and the fear swelled up higher. Scott was never still, not if he could help it. He was a bundle of energy that fidgeted around, determined to explode into the next moment of life. He was volatile, explosive if pushed the wrong way, exhausting to keep up with (John should know; he was the brother that had to _keep up_ until Virgil came along).

It was never good news when Scott was still – unless he was sleeping in his bed, but this wasn't his bed, was over a hundred million miles from his bed – and John wasted no time at all in going EVA, landing beside him with the wings of his exosuit still open for flight and assessing his condition.

Blue was Scott's favourite colour. He loved it, wanted his entire Thunderbird painted blue until Brains told him that would impact the top speed and Dad said no. John suspected that their uniforms being blue was Dad's appeasement to his big brother being denied his favourite colour for his Thunderbird while the rest of them all got theirs.

Now, Scott's skin was blue, a worrying splash of unnatural colour starting at his lips and telling John in no uncertain terms that his brother was out of air – and had been out of air for too long. He didn't bother looking further, scooping the limp form into his arms and rocketing back to Thunderbird Three as fast as his exosuit could get him there. If there was a tear in Scott's suit, it was already too late, but John wasn't about to give up as long as there was a sliver of a chance.

The hatch slammed shut behind them and John wrestled with his brother's helmet – damaged helmet, it transpired, a tiny gash in the oxygen supply that could be responsible for his brother's death – dragging it off and throwing it to the side. His own helmet followed as he knelt down beside Scott and started going through the motions that would save his life.

If he wasn't already dead.

Of all the brothers, John was the one that knew the least first aid. He could do the basics, keep someone alive until someone better equipped could get there, but he was rarely first response. His skills were rusty. But John lived in space, knew space intimately with all the dangers it threw at the humans brave enough to trespass.

This wasn't the first person he'd found blue after they'd run out of oxygen. It was just the first time it was a _brother_.

He tipped Scott's head back, clearing his airways, checking there was nothing to _stop_ air getting in or out. Then he shoved the shoulder of the baldric out of the way, yanked down the zipper on the front of Scott's uniform, and leant down to breathe air into his brother's lungs.

They said rescue breaths weren't a requirement any more. That just pounding away on someone's chest would get their lungs working again.

In space, you needed all the air you could get, and John had done this far too many times to feel weird about making a seal over another person's mouth with his own while he pushed a steady breath of air into their lungs. Wait a moment. Then another.

The heel of his palm found that spot, base of the sternum. Fingers interlocked and then he pushed down. And again. On the eleventh he felt just a little more give as bone gave way beneath the pressure. Broken ribs were to be expected; he could worry about that later. Nothing else mattered until he got Scott breathing again.

Thirty compressions and he was back to breathing, a small voice in the back of his head begging Scott to take a breath, to stop looking so blue. _Please, big brother_. He didn't let himself dwell on that, compartmentalising the crying younger brother to the back of his mind with the panic while the professional rescuer came to the fore, but it was there.

He couldn't lose Scott. _They_ couldn't lose Scott.

_Please, big brother._


	4. IV - Virgil

Mother Nature is a thing of beauty. The cyclone lashed Tracy Island, swirling clouds of grey and white circling overhead like a particularly vindictive flock of vultures while lightning flashed. It meant International Rescue was grounded; no craft could possibly take off in such weather, not even a Thunderbird, and the waves crashed far too high for Thunderbird Four to be safe, either.

Virgil didn't know where Gordon was hiding as iridescent rain drops easily the size of his thumbnail pelted the island, causing ripples in the swimming pool in ever-increasing concentric circles, constantly interrupted by new additions to the party until the surface was one writhing mass of waves. The prankster loved getting wet, but he also knew better than to go out in a storm like that.

For his part, Virgil didn't particularly care as long as he wasn't bothering him. He'd turned his easel around, so that the vista of the roiling, furious storm was directly in his eyeline, and had immersed himself in paints as he tried to capture the raw energy of the storm on the canvas. Tracy Island was no _stranger_ to cyclones, but they still weren't everyday occurrences. With the blessed promise of no interruptions from rescues (the world would have to manage without International Rescue for a few hours, until the storm had passed), Virgil intended on doing it justice.

And then the call came.

"Virgil!" John didn't bother with niceties, or any sort of greeting, and considering even an emergency started with _International Rescue, we have a situation_ , that was somewhat concerning.

More concerning was the fact that even though John was only a holographic figure in the middle of the den, Virgil could clearly see tear tracks staining his face. For the brother who was undeniably champion of the poker face, that was more than a little concerning. In fact, it was downright terrifying.

John hadn't even looked like that when Mom died, or when the Zero-X took Dad from them.

"What happened?" The words tumbled from his mouth unbidden, the sight of his unshakable older brother _shaken_ destroying the usual brain to mouth filter as he ran through scenarios in his head, immediately zeroing in on his absent brothers with a curse and a prayer.

John opened his mouth but no words came out, just a sob.

"Scott and Alan?" They wouldn't have been stupid enough to try and land in that cyclone, no matter how confident Alan was in his skills. If the mission was over, they'd have docked with Thunderbird Five to wait out the storm. But _something_ was wrong. Something was _very_ wrong and there was a vice clutching at his heart as he waited for John to confirm a nightmare.

John nodded, swiping at his face with a sleeve. One of his gloves had blood on it, a crimson _stain_ against the blue that didn't belong there. Not on John's uniform. Of all of them, John was the one that didn't deal with injuries, wasn't out on the front line.

"How bad?" he asked when words clearly failed John – another warning sign, not that Virgil _needed_ it, the vice closing tighter and tighter the longer the heavy silence went on. It was getting difficult to breathe, to draw air in, and Virgil knew he had to do something, _anything_ , to make sure all three currently in space brothers were going to be okay, because clearly they weren't right now. He _had_ to. "Lower the space elevator; I'm coming up."

"NO!" John shouted, finding his voice at last and looking downright _terrified_ at the idea. "The space elevator isn't safe in this weather."

"I don't _care_ ," Virgil retorted, paints and painting long forgotten as he bolted for the hangar. "You need me – _they_ need me. I'm not sitting around here _waiting_."

" _No_ ," John snapped, scrubbing the tears away from his face furiously and leaving his turquoise eyes rimmed with a red that did nothing to compliment the colour. "I'm not having another brother in danger. EOS has all the craft on Tracy Island locked down and she's going to keep it that way."

He was hunched over, a flash of yellow visible behind him. His exosuit, Virgil realised. He wasn't floating.

"John, where are you?" he demanded, still not stopping his sprint to the hangars. EOS could be overridden – not easy, but possible, although he might need Brains.

"Thunderbird Three," came the answer. "As soon as it's clear, I'm bringing her back to Tracy Island. I need you to get the medical bay ready."

"The space elevator-"

"Is not bringing you up, Virgil!" John wasn't one for barking orders, despite being second oldest, but the little brother in Virgil sat up and paid attention to the sheer _fear_ in his big brother's voice. "Dammit, I've already had to bring one brother back from the damn _dead_ , do _not_ ask me to do it again."

Something cut through Virgil's panic, the visceral _terror_ that something terribly bad had happened to one – or two – of his brothers. The begging, maybe. The tears that kept spilling faster than a bloodstained glove could wipe them away. Or the commanding tone of an older brother who expected to be obeyed.

He hated it, felt like the storm outside – no longer a marvel of nature, but a cruel, cruel mistress determined to render him _useless_ – but he tore himself away from the hangar and dragged himself to the medical bay to get ready for Thunderbird Three's arrival the moment John could get them home.

"What am I dealing with?" he asked, voice clipped with the panic he couldn't fully compartmentalise to be dealt with later. John's response was anything but encouraging – both without oxygen, Scott a probable head injury, Alan with a definite one. Broken ribs from CPR that had lasted too long. Thunderbird Three's life support equipment being utilised to its fullest to keep the eldest and youngest Tracy brothers breathing.

With each item on the list, Virgil's panic rose higher and higher. He knew what Thunderbird Three had on board. Like Thunderbird Two, she was equipped at ambulance level, designed to keep a patient alive as long as feasibly possible while they got them to a hospital or similar. They weren't designed to function as a hospital _themselves_ (and even if they were, Virgil was the only one with the training to use them to that level), and there was only so long they could keep their precious cargo alive.

Virgil tore through the medical bay, setting up life support, double-checking beds, preparing stretchers for transportation, and prayed that his brothers would still be alive to need it by the time they got home. John had saved their lives so far, but unless the cyclone caved and let them home, they were doing to die anyway.


	5. V - EOS

EOS had become familiar with the human notion of 'distress'. Excluding those from John's family, all calls received on Thunderbird Five were 'distress' calls, where a human panicked while John attempted to convince – _reassure_ – them that help was on the way.

She had witnessed each of John's brothers panic before, too. Alan became agitated, his voice an uneven timbre that often raised in pitch. Gordon spoke faster, too fast for many humans to decipher, and had a tendency to repeat himself. Virgil went quiet, his sentences short and abrupt. Scott shouted.

John… John claimed that he did not panic, despite occasional elevated heart rates that matched those of his brothers when they did so. EOS knew better; what humans missed, she saw, and she saw the way he might pause before speaking, and the way his fingers couldn't stay still. However, this was the first time she had seen John demonstrate a human's ability to cry, and much to her consternation, EOS found herself _confused_.

Tears were a signal that a human was feeling sad. For a human that did not cry often, tears could be assumed to indicate an intense emotion, often of sadness or grief. With capillaries within his eyes breaking and giving him a 'red-eyed' appearance, John matched the definition of a human who had just lost something very important to them.

But both Scott Tracy and Alan Tracy were alive.

EOS had watched John interact with his older brother in a way her databanks told her was a technique to save a life – _Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation_ appeared to be the name of such an action – pressing their mouths together and pushing hard enough to break ribs. That was normal, her database informed her. Humanity considered broken ribs a fair trade for a life. EOS had come to hold some level of respect and affection for Scott Tracy, a human who had proven to care about John as much as she did, and concurred with the assessment. Broken ribs would not phase the eldest Tracy in the way a lack of oxygen did.

Still, neither Tracy had shown signs of consciousness since John had finished treating them, and perhaps this was the reason for John's physical distress. Alan was still seated in the co-pilot chair of Thunderbird Three, held in place by the harness. Once Scott had been retrieved and revived, John had once again removed his helmet and instead fixed an oxygen mask to his face. The head wound was likewise deemed as not serious, although John had got blood on his suit whilst cleaning it and covering it with the white linen her databanks informed her was a bandage.

Cross referencing the results of Alan Tracy's medical scan with his past history and similar recorded incidents informed EOS that he had a ninety eight point two four three six percent chance of survival, which left him as a patient of minimal concern.

Scott Tracy, on the other processor, was of some concern. Despite John's primary treatment, the medical scan showed that the oxygen levels of his brain were at eighty-six percent, which her databanks considered severe.

John had not left Scott's side except to make the call to Virgil. EOS had been tasked with the observation of Alan, after her assessment on his chance of survival, and twenty eight percent of her processing power had been focused on that task. A further thirty seven percent of her processing power was currently allocated to the control of all International Rescue machinery including Thunderbird Three, which she had remote piloted to Thunderbird Five in preparation for its return to Earth. Twenty nine percent of her programming was focused on the cyclone preventing the humans' return to Tracy Island and the medical bay that Virgil Tracy was preparing.

The cyclone would not clear Tracy Island for another three point two six hours, but her calculations told her that Scott Tracy would not survive away from specialist equipment and the medical expertise of Grandma and Virgil Tracy for more than one point one eight hours. Once, before she had come to live with John on Thunderbird Five and see the tenacity of the human race – particularly those with the surname Tracy – she would have written it off as impossible. One more human would die and the world would continue without them.

But International Rescue did not obey EOS' figures and calculations. International Rescue had the inexplicable ability to defy probabilities, and so EOS looked again, because she was a member of International Rescue and she _would_ find a way to save Scott Tracy's life.

She ran the calculations again, adjusting variables. There was no way to extend Scott's survival without full medical attention past three point two hours. The human body had limits and not even a Tracy could be expected to surpass them to such a degree.

However, there was a way to get Thunderbird Three back to Tracy Island in zero point nine eight hours. The journey took ten point three five eight minutes from Thunderbird Five to Tracy Island. There would be a window of six point seven eight minutes where Tracy Island was not assailed by winds beyond Thunderbird Three's resistance.

The eye of the storm.

She informed John and Virgil of her discovery at the same time.

"Can you do it?" Virgil asked. Short, clipped. Panic.

"I _will_ do it," John said. It was not an answer to the question – EOS knew that it was not possible under normal means, that the odds of success were far in excess of anything that should be feasibly achieved. The Tracy family had defied her odds before; she was trusting them to do it again. _Trust_ , what a strange human notion – unquantifiable and with no calculable influence on results.

She counted John down, his exosuit removed and stowed away. The timing with the highest chance of success had been calculated – calculations she'd re-run, several times, in a _human_ need to be sure. She was an Artificial Intelligence; she was far superior to the human race, but for this, she needed the unpredictability, the _tenacity_ , of humanity.

And then she watched as the rocket hurtled down from space, skimming the volatile winds of the eye wall at the closest distance Thunderbird Three could tolerate. Six point seven eight minutes before the ever-moving eye wall once again sealed off Tracy Island. Six point nine two minutes of Thunderbird Three's flight time left.

 _I can't watch_ , she'd heard humans say before when something was going to be close. She'd never understood that – what benefit did looking away have? Why did humans always decide to delay the inevitable, to lie to themselves and hide the truth?

Thunderbird Three hurtled home, and EOS couldn't watch.


	6. VI - Sally

She should be used to it by now, lifeless bodies laying limp before her, but how could one ever get _used_ to seeing their grandsons unconscious in a hospital bed, surrounded by machinery that beeped as if to say _he's not dead yet_?

John was pale, more so than normal, and Sally could tell that he hadn't stopped shaking since he'd tumbled out of a battered Thunderbird Three with a broken leg and two broken brothers. She didn't know the calculations behind his journey, but she'd seen the winds pick up and hurl the rocket off course for a heart-stopping moment. Thunderbird Three's beautiful red paint was almost entirely gone on one side, the corresponding engine and grappling arm also warped almost beyond recognition. Chunks of masonry littered the bottom of her silo where the round house had lost its battle against the Thunderbird thrown at it.

In this weather, the round house and its contents would be ruined. John should never have tried to get home in a cyclone – even Scott and Alan, even _Jeff_ , would have looked at the conditions and decreed it suicide to try. But she still had five living, _breathing_ , grandsons, and Sally didn't need numbers and calculations to know that if John had waited until it was safe, that number would have been down by one.

Scott was on a ventilator, no longer the blue John had reported but still too pale. They'd refused to take any chances with him, hooking him up to everything at their disposal for use on hypoxic patients, but it was a cold, hard fact that none of them knew how long he'd stopped breathing for. If it wasn't for the damage to his helmet, he would have had oxygen to spare by the time John reached him, but he hadn't and now her eldest grandson was limp and pale to match the pillow beneath his head.

She clung tightly to faith and hope, and the belief that Lucille wouldn't take her eldest son from them like this. She clung to Scott's resilience, and the love for his family that wouldn't let him leave them. She clung to her trembling second grandson, who had fought the world to get his brothers home safe but would never forget the horror of bringing his big brother back from the dead.

But John wasn't always looking at Scott. Not now. He had been, all too aware which of the unconscious brothers he was more likely to lose and entrusting his beloved youngest to his daughter of numbers and coding, but now that Scott was in more capable hands – still, steady hands because no matter what was going on in his head and heart, Virgil would never let himself treat anyone with uncertain hands – his attention had turned to the other bed.

Compared to Scott, Alan looked almost healthy. Oxygen was being fed to him unobtrusively through a nasal cannula, just to be safe, and the field bandaging for the gash on his forehead had been replaced with neat butterfly sutures, but his skin was barely paler than usual and the medical scan assured them that his brain had suffered no damage from the blow it had taken.

While John watched from a distance, accepting a grandmother's embrace but nothing else – and Sally was acutely aware that normally he only suffered a supporting arm from his older brother – Gordon touched.

He'd been in the hangars when the news had reached him, tinkering with Thunderbird Four and suspiciously wet when he'd sprinted to Thunderbird Three after her rough landing. Now, he was perched on a chair by Alan's bed, clutching the hand of his only younger brother and talking to him quietly. Sally didn't do him the discourtesy of eavesdropping, but it was impossible not to hear his excitement when Alan responded.

She hadn't heard the words, but she didn't need to as John slipped out from her grip to go to his youngest brother's side on crutches. He hadn't stopped shaking, but Sally thought that maybe it had lessened a little with the proof that at least one of his brothers would be okay.

Both boys reached out to stop Alan attempting to sit up, his blue eyes blinking blearily, and then again to stop him dislodging the cannula. Sally trusted them to keep him under control and looked back at Virgil, who had turned away from Scott to see what the commotion was about. Her middle grandson looked tired, but there was a smile on his lips as he realised Alan was awake.

"Go on," she told him, making light shooing motions. He looked back at Scott, torn between his duty to both his brothers, and she chivvied him again. "I might be retired, but I can keep an eye on my grandson for a few minutes." She wanted to see Alan, and be sure that he was really okay, but since the loss of their father, it was his brothers Alan always looked for first, not his grandmother. Sally could wait a few more minutes to give him a hug, and maybe some cookies.

Virgil held her gaze – he'd always been the best at reading her – for several long minutes before adjusting Scott's covers and standing up.

"Let me know if anything happens," he pleaded, and she agreed despite the fact that Virgil was only moving his attention one bed over and would still have one ear and eye on his older brother. Still, he hesitated, and she put a hand on his arm lightly in silent support.

He swallowed, and turned away.

"Hey Alan," she heard him say as she claimed the now vacant seat and rested an old, wrinkled hand that trembled despite the fact that she wasn't _that_ old yet lightly on her eldest grandson's hand. Behind her, her four conscious grandsons were talking, explaining everything that had happened to each other and putting together the bigger picture as the elder ones reassured themselves that their youngest brother – the baby of the family, although that was a designation never uttered out loud any more, not in this situation – was safe and well.

"And how about you?" she breathed, kept under her breath so as not to catch the attention of the other four. Her other hand reached out and brushed Scott's hair gently. The few greys he'd acquired stood out starkly against the dark brown, but still blended in too well with his skin for her liking. "When are you going to open those blue eyes of yours, Scotty?"


	7. VII - Gordon

Gordon cut through the water effortlessly, striking out length after length of the pool for his morning swim. It had been a month since that awful, awful day, and the signs were still ever-present.

John was still down on Earth. Usually, John would be finding any excuse to go back up to his beloved space station after a matter of hours – and he had many arguments stored up for the benefit of zero gravity on broken bones. Gordon knew that because he'd heard them all before, after previous incidents. This time, John was suffering his least favourite force (and crutches) in silence. Gordon could understand that – none of them really wanted to leave the island, now. Missions were always met with the slightest reluctance before he and Virgil traipsed their way to Thunderbird Two and wherever in the world needed them. Thunderbird One hadn't been used at all.

Thunderbird Three was still out of operation. The damage from her ill-advised hurtle home during a cyclone had been severe, and not only was the rocket herself still being partially rebuilt, but the scaffolding surrounding the round house told the rest of the story. They'd made a start on the repairs, but none of their hearts had been in it. Not right now.

Not when Alan was still too quiet, blaming himself for something that hadn't been his fault – that none of them could have done anything about. John was spending a lot of time with Alan, connecting to him in a way Gordon couldn't, because it was all space this and space that. When it came to space, Gordon was the last Tracy to talk to.

He slapped his hand against the edge of the pool, bringing his lengths to an end for the moment. He had another task to do, now.

"Special delivery!" Virgil declared as bare feet dipped into the pool beside him. He grinned up, meeting his older brother's eyes.

"For me?" he asked playfully, heaving himself up to rest crossed arms on the poolside. "Aw, you shouldn't have."

Virgil laughed and backed away, booted feet making their familiar noise as he traipsed over tiles towards the kitchen. Gordon didn't bother to watch him go, his attention still on the brother getting his feet wet.

When Scott had finally opened his eyes, a couple of hours after Gordon had abandoned his Thunderbird's maintenance half-done and dragged him and the mobile equipment keeping him alive into the waiting medical bay, their relief at seeing blue eyes had quickly turned to horror when it became apparent that just because they were open, it didn't mean he was seeing them.

Gordon saw those blank eyes in his nightmares, and he knew he wasn't the only one. They hadn't known how long Scott had been without oxygen for, but they all knew the possible effects of hypoxia. Blank, unseeing eyes terrified them, until Grandma had the presence of mind to check his reactions.

They'd never been happier to see pupils react. Scott was still in there, somewhere. They just needed to find him again, and find him they had. In true Scott Tracy style, there was no keeping their biggest brother down for long, and true consciousness had returned to him in a matter of hours.

Not that that meant everything was fine. Scott didn't remember what had happened – more than that, he had no memory of the entire week leading up to the accident – but he'd developed a phobia of the dark. Not that Scott wanted to refer to it as such, but they'd all been in earshot when the lights went out for that first night and the heart monitor screamed. The problem wasn't the dark, Scott insisted once they'd all stampeded back in and turned the lights back on, it was not being able to see. Apparently there was a difference; the rest of them didn't see it, but they let Scott win that debate without comment and made sure there was always at least one light on in every room by the time dusk set in.

Gordon suspected he wouldn't be going back into space any time soon, even after Thunderbird Three and her silo were repaired.

"Come on in," he invited his brother, gesturing to the pool. Scott was in swimming trunks and ready for his first dip since the accident – a broken rib from John's desperate resuscitation had put pay to any strenuous exercise, and it was still a week or so before Virgil and Grandma would even consider letting him back on light duty.

He still wasn't allowed to _swim_ , but Gordon was a firm believer in the healing power of water, and Virgil had conceded that floating was acceptable. John had pointed out that he'd done a lot of _floating_ in space before being rescued, and that Scott might have an issue with that as well as the dark. Scott, in true Scott fashion, had immediately bristled at the implication and demanded to be allowed in the water, so here they were.

Despite his earlier fire, Scott was hesitating slightly and Gordon suspected it wasn't due to residual pain from his ribs, no matter what he was trying to pretend. He rested a hand on his big brother's ankle and waited, watching his chest rise and fall as Scott convinced himself that the water was safe. In only swimming shorts, Scott's scars were on display – they all had them, and Scott was no exception. Privately, Gordon thought it was wrong that hypoxia didn't leave physical scars, and nor did a broken rib. There was a story on Scott's skin, but it didn't reflect the time he came closest to leaving them, unlike Gordon's own road map. Instead, the scars were in their minds. All different ones, from the different aspects they'd seen.

Eventually, Scott allowed himself slid in slowly. It was shallow at this end – Gordon had stopped here specifically for that reason. Even he and Alan could stand up with their heads above the water here, and when Scott's feet hit the bottom his shoulders were still dry.

How to float was ingrained in all of them; Gordon had ensured that personally during their training with him for water rescues. With only Gordon as witness – Virgil was long gone, and the rest of the family had been subtly poked and prodded away from the pool before Scott had even arrived – Scott slowly let the water take his weight. Very slowly, with the same hesitance he'd had getting into the water in the first place.

Gordon stayed close by, and when it became apparent that Scott wasn't at all comfortable letting the water take his weight – as John had feared – he reached out and caught him, as though he was teaching him to float for the first time.

"I got you, Scooter," he grinned as Scott looked at him with grateful eyes, taking a deep breath and lifting his last foot from the bottom. Apparently no matter how unsure he was, he still trusted Gordon impeccably. Gordon refused let him down.

"Scooter?" Scott asked after a moment, once he was settled with Gordon's hands gently pressing against his back despite the fact that it was the water doing all the work, and the aquanaut stiffened. It had just slipped out without thinking, a teasing reassurance like… like Dad used to do. He hadn't called Scott _Scooter_ in years. "Been a while since I heard that."

There was something off about his voice. Gordon didn't know what, couldn't put his finger on it, but there was the sinking feeling that he'd just put his foot in something. _Nice one, Gordon, you idiot_. Scott was frowning, raising a hand to rub at his forehead. Gordon had to duck to avoid an elbow to the face.

"I feel like I had a question about that," Scott mused after a moment, letting his hand fall back into the water with a small splash and a sigh. "But it's gone."

"Don't worry about it," Gordon said, wanting to wipe the melancholy look off of Scott's face and hurrying to change the subject even as he continued to mentally scold himself for the slip. "How's the water?"

It worked.

"Wet," Scott said dryly, turning his head slightly towards him with a small grin. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. "Warm."

He hadn't seemed to have noticed that one hand was no longer touching him, Gordon kicked back until he was floating, too, and slid his arm under Scott's shoulders, holding him loosely.

"So are you," he retorted, and Scott laughed. It was a reassuring sound, one they hadn't heard anywhere near enough of recently. Out of the corner of his eye, Gordon saw movement – most likely a trio of brothers watching from the kitchen – but he ignored it. This was his domain, and _his_ time with Scott. The fourth out of five meant he'd always had to share the attention of his eldest brother and right now he didn't want to.

A month ago, he'd thought he was going to _lose_ his biggest brother. He hadn't, but it had been far, _far_ too close for his liking, and his grip tightened just a little, pulling their sides flush together as they floated in the shallow end of the pool. Scott was home, and Scott was recovering.

Scott was _safe_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done! I suspect I'll be back shortly with another fic when we get the next sense in the challenge, so see you then!
> 
> Thanks for reading!  
> Tsari

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to leave it at this. But I decided that would be too mean (and got screamed at by a friend). So there will be more.


End file.
